


I've been Awake for Hours (You've been Asleep for Days)

by RougeBlatant



Series: Calorecest [8]
Category: Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Guns, M/M, Maven is a proud child, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 11:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11645361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RougeBlatant/pseuds/RougeBlatant
Summary: In the aftermath of the silence, Cal could have swore that his heart had been shot instead.





	I've been Awake for Hours (You've been Asleep for Days)

**Author's Note:**

> The bastard is back with a 1700 word extravaganza. Fairly sure this is my longest fic so far.  
> This one was worked on while traveling on trains and at work, which is why it took so long. It was also not one of the four I still have half written...  
> Warning they may be pretty out of character. Unlike with most of the other stories, I had no access to the books while I worked on it and so some of the information may also be incorrect. (I tried though.)  
> Enjoy.

The nightmares used to be frequent and seemingly endless, he remembered the night that mother had taken them away, twisting his mind further and further, warping it till it was irreparable. At which point did she let it reach irreparable?

He would never admit it to her face, knowing the truth would come clean, but sometimes those dreams would go away. When Cal lay in the bed beside him, allowing him to cling to the fabric of his sleepwear. That was when it was still innocent, and still then he was afraid to tell mother.

Afraid of what? Of her wrath of her anger, he knew it would never be placed on him, not fully. She would claim Cal tricked him, seduced him, took advantage of him; he knew she wouldn't listen even if he told her the truth that he was the one to start it.

He didn't want Cal to get hurt, not to get blamed and this was the price? Well he could suppose it was the universe's payment for what he done, or rather what he would eventually do.

————————

The arena was destroyed, rubble and dust and Cal stood in the middle of it. This was it, Maven knew as he descended down the remains of the stairs, the Scarlett Guard and their allies had won. Mare stood beside Cal, looking ready to execute Maven herself, but it wasn't her right and Maven knew this as he came to stand before Cal.

Cal, he held the strong posture he always, his, strength on his face yet his eyes were flooded with emotion. His brother may have never been the better liar, but it couldn't be said that he didn't know how to lie. 

Neither brother spoke a word as Maven was shoved to the ground by a rebel, nor was a word spoken as his hands were cuffed with silent stone shackles. By the crown did Mare look satisfied, maybe she'd put a leash round his neck instead of killing him. He huffed in morbid laughter as he decided that would be the fate worse then death, mother never liked him to humiliate himself. 

Some orders were barked by a captain, Maven didn't listen since he was too busy watching Cal, listening to Cal's silence, speaking to Cal without words. Amber eyes stared back at him, what was the emotion in them? Maven couldn't tell, shame to be his brother, fear for his life, rage at all he had done or sympathy. 

In a second Maven wanted it all back, from before, but this was reality now.

Maven didn't hang his head as he was approached by a general, he supposed that was what their rank was, the man looked at him though cold hazel eyes.  
"Maven of Houses Calore and Merandus, you will be tried for treason, usurping and atrocities committed by you, or at your command." He promised, or did he threaten, when it came to war, promises and threats really were just the same thing.

————————

Had anyone told Maven that he would be imprisoned in the same place where he decided he would see Mare and Cal die that long time ago, he would have dismissed them, ordering them dead would only show fear, make the rebels think that he believed their revolt would succeed. How right they would have been. 

Maven sits in his cell, refusing to look up, to answer the many questions they have for him, he is the king, he does not have to answer to them. The leaders of the Red Guard stand over him, rubbing the bridges of their noses or tapping their feet, only Mare stands still, the only one who knows him. The other traitors enter, his Grandmother's and her allies' commanders, house Samos included. There is an irony, Maven decided, in how the people he should have been able to trust as his confidants, were the traitors. The men and woman discuss in voices that are hardly hushed, yet cautious all the same, Maven only registered one thing on their lips amongst the swarm of discussion. Cal. That's what they say, he tries to listen more, but the conversations stop, but he can hardly complain as the other people in the room file out. 

—————————  
It takes Cal about half an hour to arrive, Maven guesses this though it could easily have been fifteen minutes or two hours. Cal stares down at him again with the same expression as before, Maven stares back. Waving his hand, Cal dismissed the guards, waiting till they left to take a seat on the floor, opposite Maven. 

"Mother would throw a fit if she saw us sitting on the floor like this." Maven spoke for the first time in hours.  
"I think most of the court would."  
"How are they going to torture me first?"  
"By sending your own brother in, I assume." To which Maven only laughed bitterly.  
"That is by no means torture, that's relief." Cal tried to ignore the lack of sarcasm in Maven's voice, he looked Maven in the eyes.  
"They want me to ask you some questions."  
"Do you remember the first we slept together?"  
"Maven…"  
"Do you?" Cal look at Maven through tortured eyes, indecisions echoing in his mind. Maven continued as he observed Cal's lack of willingness to reply, "I have no intention of living this place alive, Cal. I have no intention of answering their questions, nor of cooperating."

The next few minutes were layered with silence, to much tension for it to be peaceful.  
"It was several years ago, you had another nightmare, so you ran to my room and hid in my bed." Cal refused to look Maven in the eyes, a wistful look on his brother's face.  
"You regret it?" Maven asked as his observed the conflict on Cal's face.  
"I regret what came after it. It wouldn't have been so bad, you betraying me, us, if we hadn't been through so much together."  
"I didn't want to, at first, but it I didn't want to disappoint mother, then I got caught up in it, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed, the power, the strength, the lack of a shadow. Yet, I missed you."  
"Why are you telling me this Maven?"  
"Because I'm not going with them."  
"You have no choice." Maven leaned further towards Cal.  
"I have multiple choices, what they want, and my own two wants." He did not pause to allow Cal to speak, only continuing. "I find it hard to believe that you would simply let me free, even if I did leave to a another country, hide away, become a monk." Maven smiled at his own bitter joke.  
"What's the other choice?" Despite Cal phrasing it as a question, Maven knew it was rhetorical, yet he replied regardless.  
"You know the other choice, there's only one way to leave this place an honorable man."  
"You stopped being honorable long ago, Maven."  
"And that never stopped you from loving me, however you view me, a brother, or a lover." Cal closed his eyes in a short recollection of their sweet sins, opening them again as the reality him him once again.  
"So what do you want me to do?"  
"You have a gun don't you?"  
"You know I can't do that, that's treason." Cal protested, justice was needed, for the people and yet the ideas of the unaltered future burned him.  
"Then tell them I stole it from you, in their eyes anything is above me and apparently I'm a desperate man."  
"You know I can't."  
"There's nothing stopping you." Maven tried to reason. "You can leave the room, say I threatened you, you don't have your flame maker, you have no way of self defense."  
"Maven..."  
"I've already paid my debts, losing mother, losing you, what kind of execution or torture will make up for that." Cal looked at Maven with undisguised suprise.  
"You never admitted it before."  
"What?"  
"That you actually cared, I thought I could tell, but after your betrayal, I doubted it all."  
"I always tried to care, Cal, but mother made that difficult."

Cal stood, an almost urge to pace the room, and yet he remained still. Maven watched with complete attentiveness, once icy eyes melted into cold seas of the north.  
"Maven, can't you do anything else?"  
"Do you think there is anything I can do? I will not be seen as weak Cal. Let them call me a traitor, let them call me a tyrant, a usurper, because that is what I am, but I am no coward."  
Cal rest his hand on his hip bone, inches from his concealed gun.  
"Please, Cal."  
"I don't want to do this, you're my brother, and despite how much I should hate and despise you, there's still love there. I should want to watch your head fall from your shoulders in repentance for all the souls you've damaged, but I don't."  
"Because you know I'm already broken Cal, mother broke me long ago and now I'm just remains stuck together."  
"She was so cruel to you, you should have said something, anything, father would have stopped her."  
"But she was still my mother."  
"What about father?"  
"Cal, I plead for you to hand me your gun."  
Cal nodded, not speaking as he removed the gun from where it was hidden, taking off the safety, he handed it to Maven who closed his eyes in some mental preparation. Exhaling shakily words stumbled out of his mouth.  
"Cal, I love you."  
"I love you too, Mavey." Maven, opening his eyes again, looked up at him and smiled, a resigned smile, a tired smile. He lifted the gun and positioned it in place. inclining his head, he said nothing more, waiting for Cal to leave the room. 

No further word was said as the room relapsed into anticipant silence.

Cal stepped back opening the door, glancing back at Maven one last time before stepping through the doorway, holding his breath as he stepped though and let the door clank shut behind him. He took several paces away from the cell, stopping just outside. He closed his eyes and flinched when, from in the other room, a gunshot rang out. In the aftermath of the silence, Cal could have swore that his heart had been shot instead.


End file.
